Chosen for the Future
by Oh Please
Summary: Kagome hid a near genius IQ from everyone so she could have a normal life. She could never forsee the consequences of that information leaking to certain people.
1. Chapter 1

It was strange. All her life she had felt that she was nothing special. Sure, her parents had bragged on her intelligence, but what parent didn't think their kid was a genius. She had worked hard in school to get good grades, but still flew under the radar of the other kids and teachers. She had seen how the "smart kids" were ostracized and wanted no part of that life. She was happy being seen as average. Her grades were exactly where they needed to be to get into the best schools without showing off. She knew she couldn't handle the rat race the top three percent of the class lived in. She didn't do well with extreme pressure. So, she dumbed-down her test scores and life was happy.

How was she to know that some simple on-line IQ test was a trap? It has just been a simple pop-up with funny shapes, asking which of the following answers fit the pattern. She had been bored, and none of her friends had been online to IM that evening. So, she had clicked the link and headed into what she assumed was an anonymous quiz on logical reasoning. The quiz allowed her to answer a few questions, and save out of it if she got tired and wanted to come back. She assumed it was one of those "keep your brain active" types of websites, and simply had fun. She knew no one could tell who she was from her answers, so she didn't pull her punches, and answered everything correctly.

It had been an enjoyable evening of mental exercise, and she decided to bookmark the site and come back to it at a later date. It never occurred to her that if it really were just an advertisement, that the information wouldn't be saved. She never even thought of that because her friend had called on her cell phone and she closed the pop-up window to deal with the drama de jour.

Almost a week later, she sat down to her computer to enter the information in an application for one of her prospective colleges. When she had started truly searching for colleges, she had done more research than most career services centers of post-graduate degree schools. She had stacks of statistics on entrance exams, average scores, and career placement after graduation on at least the top 50 colleges within a 200 mile radius. She wasn't really interested in the hype and prestige that some colleges had attached to their names. She was more interested in practical application. She knew where she wanted to be and had to find the best avenue to get there. Her short list was narrowed down to five colleges that could help her succeed in her chosen career field; or should she say 'fields.'

For in truth, although she was very focused and precise about how she intended to reach her goal, her actual goal was still fairly equally torn between medical research and law. She truly excelled in any medical related course and knew that she could find ways to solve medical problems, and maybe find cures to all sorts of diseases. The only problem was she was terrified of having someone else's life in her hands. What if she messed up? What if the one day she had stayed up late, and hadn't had enough caffeine, she was faced with a choice between two options, and she made the wrong choice? What if her inattentiveness cost someone their very life? What if she was researching a cure for a terrible disease and took a day off? Would that one day cost some poor suffering patient their life because she had been a day late in finding that solution?

So, the more she had researched the medical field, the more she came to realize that she might not be up to the challenge. She knew intellectually, she could handle the career. She was sure she was smart enough. What worried her were the emotional and psychological ramifications. Her friends had always warned her that she was too kind. She not only wore her heart on her sleeve, but on her whole body. So much so, that her friends had begun a rumor that she was actually empathic, and could feel another's pain. In a way it was true. Even though her life had been fairly tragedy free, she could honestly sense the feelings of those around her. Sometimes, she even equated it to being able to smell their sorrow.

This vulnerability brought her to the inevitable conclusion, that she probably could succeed in the medical field in the short-term, but long-term it would kill her soul. So, with that in mind, she had started searching for an alternative interest. Little by little, law had emerged as an interesting, fluid field of study that intrigued her. It wasn't as cut and dry as Social Studies and Civics class made it seem. It also wasn't as glamorous as all the made for TV. dramas and movies made it seem. Law was about knowing what was right, and finding the precedents to support ones arguments. If fit with her personality. As a child, when she had tried to tell her scientist father that he was wrong on a subject, her opinion was dismissed until she brought documentation to prove her point. She had developed her skill in persuasive arguing as well as researching her issues.

So, as she considered colleges, she looked first at which would help her become a lawyer, then secondly, which might offer some courses in her second passion, medicine. She had prepared all the essays that all the college applications required, as well as securing the letters of recommendation needed for some of her choices. All that was left was the actual process of applying. It was funny how some colleges had a single page application, where others expected her to produce a novelette about her entire life.

She worked on one of the longest applications. It had always been her practice to do the longest project first, so she could get it out of the way and forget about it. So, after spending an hour filling in blanks, and running back and forth between her Mom and the computer to get vital information, she felt mentally drained. Just when she was about to quit and call it a night, the pop-up reappeared about the "keep your brain active" quiz she had started a week before.

With a relieved sigh, she minimized the college application; afraid if she closed it she would lose all the entered data and have to start over. Someone really needed to fix that about Adobe™ documents. The first question where she resumed the quiz was so simple it almost didn't even seem like a question. She smiled as she clicked the obvious answer and moved on to a slightly tougher question.

Time slipped away as she focused more and more of her reasoning skills on the problems. They would get progressively harder, and then would slack off to something simple. She recognized the pattern in the back of her mind, but didn't really pay it any attention. It was like the computer programmed exercise bikes in gym class that they used on rainy days. The programs would make the riding harder as if the cyclist were riding up and down progressively larger hills.

It was long past the time her Mom had called goodnight to her and admonished her to get to bed. Even if the next day was Saturday, her friends would be over at an ungodly early hour to "hang out." She had long decided that humans were pack animals by nature and felt uncomfortable without the protection of their "herd." Yes, she knew she was weird to think these things, but she had spent too many hours people-watching not to notice these trends. She had always felt just a little bit like an outsider looking in on these strange creatures that surrounded her.

As it neared midnight, the quiz questions seemed almost unfathomable. She frowned in concentration, and pulled the chapped skin off her bottom lip. Her eyes began blurring and she had to blink quickly to clear her vision. It was only then, with a feeling like she had woken from a deep sleep, that she became aware of her surroundings again. How had so many hours gone by without her noticing it? She looked out her bedroom door at the hallway to see that the rest of the house was eerily dark and silent. The only light was a small nightlight that shown into the hallway from the bathroom.

With a brisk rubbing of her weary eyes, she laughed at herself and turned to prepare for bed. The movements were routine, and required no thought at all. She had actually slid into the sheets and turned off the lights when she realized she had left the computer on. For just a second, she thought about getting out of her comfy, warm bed and trekking across the room to shut it down. But then, sleep pulled her farther into its clutches, and she shrugged and rolled to face away from the glowing monitor. She didn't want to lose all her college application information, so she decided to just leave it on for the night. What could it hurt?

As she slept, unaware, the hard drive on her computer began to whine. The activity light on the keyboard began blinking as more and more of the available function was being used. The occasionally blinking light flickered faster and faster until it was a steady blue glow. The fan in the back of the computer cycled on to try cooling the over-heating processor within the machine.

As the screen darkened after being idle for the set amount of time, a small box appeared in the task bar nestled at the bottom of the screen. The message, "transmission in progress" appeared for barely a second. A moment later the message, "report received" flashed. A minute later, the task bar flashed, "Pathway deleted." Then the entire screen went black to be filled with the screen saver of small white dots that simulated a streaming star scene or snow falling towards the computer.


	2. Chapter 2

She tore into an official looking envelope with the return address of one of the colleges on her short list. With trembling hands, she pulled out a single sheet of paper and began reading.

Dear Ms. Higarashi:

Thank you for your interest in our college. We can not accept your application at this time due to the following reasons;

1) Your application was not completed within the required timeline.

2) Your test scores and GPA do not meet the minimum required standard for admittance.

Once you have corrected these deficiencies, please feel free to reapply. If you resubmit an application within a two year period, your application fee will be applied to that new application. Thank you for your interest… blah, blah, blah."

A frustrated scream echoed throughout the second floor of the little home. The scream was followed by disbelieving muttering and the sound of feet pacing back and forth. "How could this be happening? I know I triple checked every application! How could all five applications be wrong?" She stomped back over to her desk where the other rejection letters were beginning to stack up. With each letter, the answer had been the same. Somehow they thought she had missed the deadlines, and her grades were not high enough.

She sat down with this new turndown letter, and did the same thing she had done with the last four. She pulled out the college prospectus for the college and verified again the entrance scores needed for admittance. She was well over the minimum required grades and test scores, and just didn't understand what was happening! Then she quickly went online and pulled up the college's website to see if the scores had changed in the last few weeks. Nothing was different than the printed scores. What was going on?!

If it were humanly possible, steam would have poured out of the girl's ears at this moment. She had only sent applications to the five colleges that were at the top of her list. Each college filled her requirements for academic excellence, good student culture and high placement in the job field after graduation. She didn't have any contingency plan for the event that all five turned her down. This last college had been her last hope.

In a flurry of anger and frustration, she opened a Word™ document and penned a response letter explaining that her scores as indicated on her transcripts and registration were above the printed minimum, and she provided a copy of the prospectus and printout from the website. Then she supplied a copy of her delivery confirmation of when she electronically filed her application with them weeks in advance of the deadline. This was the same routine she had used on the other four rejection letters, and she had yet to receive a positive answer. The others simply stated that their policies had to be followed without exceptions. What a load of bull!

After this final letter was printed, signed and mailed, she sat in shock in her room and stared out the window. What was she supposed to do now? She hadn't planned for this eventuality. She had been confident that some college would want her. Tears sprang up in her eyes as she pondered the next year without the option of college. What in the world would she do? There was always work, but how would this look on her future resumes? Had to wait a year and reapply to lesser colleges? For that matter, even if she reapplied to her top five, would they reject her again next year? For the first time in her eighteen years of life, she regretted dumbing-down her test answers to have a normal life. She had never realized that it could affect her future in such a disastrous way. She had just wanted to be a normal girl and do normal girl things.

As the mood in her room was getting progressively darker as the day lost its light to the evening, her Mom knocked gently on the door. A sweet smile shown on the older woman's face as she asked, "Kagome, dear. Are you alright? I heard a lot of anger up hear a minute ago. Did the letter not go like you wanted it to?"

Kagome turned her sad eyes towards her wonderful mother. The urge to unload all this on her Mother was a great temptation. Instead, she took a deep breath and tried to blow out the stress before she explained, "Yea, it was another rejection letter. I just don't know how things could have gotten messed up on all five applications. This just doesn't make any sense. You know I double and triple checked everything. I even had you look over most of them for any glaring errors. The only thing I can figure is that something was wrong with my computer. That's the only common denominator in all the applications. I e-filed them all. I guess I should have backed up my efforts by forwarding a hard copy within the time frame." She looked down at her hands and realized she had been worrying the envelope the last letter had arrived in. With a huff of disgust, she tossed the stupid paper in the garbage.

Her mother's sweet voice asked gently, "So, do you have any plans for the months between now and when you can reapply? Or are there any other colleges with later deadlines that you could approach?" Her Mom walked into the room with the grace of a fairy and sat softly on the bed.

Kagome shook her head which caused her black hair to wave about her shoulders. Then, as if deflated, she fell back onto her bed to stare at the ceiling while she contemplated her future. Her Mom reached out and grasped her hand in support. Kagome tried to work things out, "I don't know, Mom. I had thought I'd be starting college in the fall. I'm not really sure what to do right now. The institutions that have later deadlines are not anywhere near the top of my list. In fact, the community college is probably the only thing I could get into right now, and that would look worse on my transcript than if I took off for a year." She used her right hand to slowly pick at the chapped skin on her bottom lip as she tried to find a solution. "I guess I could apply to some jobs to make money while I wait for the registration deadlines to come around again. Still, the jobs won't pay much because I don't have a college degree. But maybe I could get something related to the field I want to enter."

Her Mom patted the hand that she still held and reassured, "I'm sure you will figure out something, dear. You're very smart and you know what you want. This is just a little obstacle on the path to your dreams, and you'll find a way to overcome it. I know you will." Her Mom stood and made her way back out of the darkening room and called over her shoulder, "I'm making your favorite for dinner, so don't brood over this too long. Also, there is other mail that you forgot in your rush to read that letter. Oh, and Grandpa wanted to know if you could help out in the gift shop this weekend?"

Kagome shifted uncomfortably just thinking about hawking trinkets to shrine patrons but still yelled out dutifully, "Thanks Mom and tell Grandpa I'll think about it." She couldn't just agree outright, otherwise then the old man would expect her to help him out all the time. Or worse yet, he might think she was showing some interest in becoming the next shrine keeper. That was never going to happen, even if all the colleges in the world turned her down. After all the time she had spent in the Warring States era fighting demons and learning to be a shrine maiden, she had no interest in pursuing such here in the future. But her family didn't understand that, since time had reset itself and she was the only one who retained memories of that journey.

It was really strange having the soul, experience and maturity of a twenty-five year old woman in the body of a fifteen year old girl. When time had reset after the banishing of the jewel into oblivion, she had found herself back at the well when she had followed Buyo into the well house. But instead of finding a demon, she only found the family cat. Nothing had happened, other than retrieving said feline, and heading on to a normal day at school.

She almost laughed as she lay there on the bed, staring at the ceiling. That had been three years ago. She had been twenty-five when the jewel was completed the second time and finally wished on. So, technically, she was really now a twenty-eight year old woman in the body of a teenager. It was truly laughable. Sometimes she thought it had all been a nightmare, or a fevered hallucination, but the scar on her side reminded her that it had been real.

Maybe this was the jewel's way of apologizing to her for taking so much away from her. First it took away her normal life in the future, or would this be the present? Then it took away her life in the past. On bad days, Kagome was sure that the jewel had no intention of letting her be happy in any era. Still, she tried to strive for normalcy in what was left of her life.

For the first year, she had been in such a horrible depression from missing Inuyasha, Sango, Miroku, Shippo and everyone. She even missed Naraku, in some sick, twisted, he-was-always-there sort of way. The present was down-right boring without someone jumping out and trying to kill her, kidnap her, possess her or mate her. She would have even loved a visit from the annoying wolf prince or Jakken. Just anything to connect her to that life.

At first it had only been the loneliness that haunted her. Then, after a few days, she had realized that if the past had really happened, like she knew it had, then all her wonderful friends were already dead. That had totally thrown her emotions into a tailspin. It was like she had attended twenty funerals all in one day. She could keep herself busy during the day, but the memories and longing haunted her at night. Most nights found her sobbing brokenly into her pillow so as not to alert anyone to her distress.

Her family had been wonderful, and supportive, even though they didn't truly understand. Her bizarre mood change had been attributed to puberty and the stress of entrance exams. They did everything they could think of to help her cope with her grief, and it helped in some small way. Mostly, time had taken the bitter edge off her every waking moment, and she found she could focus once again on living this replayed life.

One good thing about reliving her high school years was that she already knew the subjects well enough that she passed with above average grades the first time. So, this time around, she barely had to study at all. Just covering the material in school was enough to refresh her recollection and she earned A's with ease. She even made A's in math and earned a spot on the Math Team. Go figure!

Sometimes, the two experiences overlapped and caused problems. When she was not really paying attention, she found herself confused about where her locker was this time around. Sometimes, she tried to use her locker combination from before time reset itself on her current lock. It was frustrating, but she could handle it.

One correction she made this time around was to tell Hojo flat-out, in clear, unambiguous words, a big, fat, resounding, "NO!" every time he asked for a date. She liked him okay as far as classmates went. But let's face it, when compared to the 'males' she had encountered for the eight years she was in the Warring States Era, Hojo was a wimp. He didn't even compare to his ancestor, who although clumsy, had grown a back-bone when it was needed. This Hojo was like a pale, wimpy version of Koga in his persistence with the personality of Kanna of the void.

Another correction she made was to take control of her annoying, meddlesome friends. She was never going to let anyone pressure her into doing things she didn't want. Life was too short (unless you had a magic jewel replay eight years of your life). She had a second chance to experience all the things she had sacrificed for the completion of that cursed jewel, and she meant to enjoy them all. There was no way she would let those silly, teenage twits control or influence her.

So, after the depression of that first year had faded to a manageable level, and she had secretly made shrines to all her friends and allies back in the woods beyond the God Tree; she had set out to make a difference in THIS world. That started with getting top scores on the High School Entrance Exam. That had been an easy goal, since she had managed to pass fairly well the first time with all the demonic distractions. After that, she had set about secretly excelling in school and researching her career path.

With half a snort that sounded suspiciously like something Inuyasha would issue, Kagome raised herself once again out of her pit of despair and self-pity. She was too old (in mind and soul) to get so steamed about this minor detour on her career path. With a mental shake and an internal scolding for her childishness, she stomped down the stairs to join her family for her favorite meal.

Beside her place setting, she found the mail her Mom had mentioned. One particular envelope caught her attention. It seemed to almost shimmer to her spiritual senses for just a second, but she brushed off the feeling as wishful thinking caused by her recent memories. The return address indicated a fancy letterhead she had never encountered in her college research. With mild curiosity, she ripped open the envelope and withdrew the contents. She unfolded the letter, and a few slips of paper fell from the folds. Hmmm. She began to read.

Dear Ms. Higarashi:

Now is the most crucial time of your life as you decide your collegiate future. We wish to extend to you this offer for a complimentary tour of our campus. We are proud of our newest branch of the internationally renowned _Future University_ of Tokyo and would like to introduce ourselves to you in person. We have campuses around the globe from Egypt to Frankfurt Germany, to Hokadate, Hokkaido, Japan.

Our newest campus in Tokyo, Japan, provides diverse majors from medicine to education. We have enlisted some of the preeminent scholars in the fields of Medicine, Political Science, International Affairs, Physics and Business Administration to act as our faculty and student advisors. Each new student is paired with an academic advisor from their preferred area of study who will guide and assist you through your entire college career. We offer a wide variety of core requirements as well as extracurricular activities to create the perfect, well-rounded student. The Tokyo campus will also be providing post-graduate degrees in Medicine, Political Science, Law, Business Administration, Education and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Open registration closes on August 15th and scholarships are still available. So schedule your personal tour today to visit the campus of tomorrow. We look forward to helping you pursue your career goals at the _Future Univeristy_ of Tokyo.

Truly yours,

Dean Douglas Shuhan, PhD.

Kagome looked at the slips of paper that accompanied this unexpected letter. One was a parking voucher, and the other the business card of this very same Dean, with his direct line hand-written in at the bottom. She stared at the letter again with her mouth hanging open. What were the chances of this offer coming right on the heels of her final rejection letter? Maybe the gods were smiling down on her? Nah. Her luck was never that good. There must be a catch. Still, as she started thoughtfully eating her Oden, she decided to at least make a call tomorrow after thoroughly checking this university out on the internet. What could it hurt?


End file.
